With rain washing out Thursday’s session and then cold overnight temperatures resulting in ice on the track barriers, Sprint Cup drivers started a nearly seven-hour test session about four hours later than originally scheduled Friday.

That was OK for the drivers, who just wanted to get on the track to see how their cars would handle on the 1.5-mile oval.

“There’s a lot of questions to be answered,” said Martin Truex Jr. as he awaited his first time in the 2013 car on an intermediate track. “What is this car like? What is it going to feel like? What kind of balance is it going to take to make more speed? What kind of shift will take place in the balance as the fuel burns off.”

After about four hours of testing, Greg Biffle posted the top speed at 192.610 mph, followed by the Toyota of Clint Bowyer (192.375), the Ford of Joey Logano (192.014) and the Chevrolet of Juan Pablo Montoya (191.761).

NASCAR officials felt satisfied and decided that the test Friday would be enough, electing not to extend the test to Saturday or to come back with all teams to Charlotte on a later date.

“There are some teams that would test every day that they can but … the teams are trying to catch up building cars and their shop time is very valuable to them,” Sprint Cup Series Director John Darby said. “Everybody goes back into the field for real in 40 days or whatever it is. That doesn’t leave a lot of time left. There’s a thousand guys working out there that have families that need a couple of weekends at home.

“If they can get another few hours in the shop instead of being somewhere at a racetrack, that’s not the worst thing in the world.”

Not only do the cars have new bodies to embrace the manufacturer features of the passenger cars they represent, but there also are new rules that include a total weight difference of 180 pounds, new rear camber rules and the elimination of the rear sway bar.

So there was plenty to work on for the 33 teams that showed up for testing. Denny Hamlin, whose girlfriend was due to give birth to the couple’s first daughter, missed the test with Joe Gibbs Racing test driver Michael McDowell filling his seat.

The test Friday was valuable because organizations are limited to four tests on tracks that play host to NASCAR national series races, and the Charlotte test didn’t count toward their allotment.

Teams can test as many times as they want at tracks that don’t play host to NASCAR national series races.

“If we think we need to learn more or if we’ve got unanswered questions, then we’ll be somewhere testing next week,” Truex said.

While NASCAR had an open test last month at Charlotte, the test didn’t even attract 20 teams because so many were behind in getting cars built. Among the organizations that skipped that test were Michael Waltrip Racing and Roush Fenway Racing.

“This is the first opportunity we’ve really had to get the car on the racetrack in the configuration we’re actually going to race in,” said Roush Fenway’s Greg Biffle. “We’ve tested a few times with a composite body and not all of the latest rules, but this is really it for us.

“We needed these two days to really figure out what the car is going to end up like.”